UNITED NATIONS, April 25 (UPI) -- It took a weekend trip back to his Minnesota alma mater for U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to speak out forcefully, yet diplomatically, against "very unfair and unjustifiable criticism" of the world organization in recent years fueled by scandals surrounding Iraq Oil-for-Food Program.
Annan spoke with reporters in the home state of perhaps his fiercest congressional critic, Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., who had called for the secretary-general's resignation at the height of criticism against the United Nations. A transcript of the encounter was released at U.N. World headquarters in New York.
The first question was about his "relationship" with the senator.
"As far as a relationship with the junior senator is concerned, I can't say we have a relationship. We've met a couple of times," he said.
Coleman is outranked by Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., who entered the upper house in 2001. Coleman became a senator two years later.
"I've known the other Minnesota politicians better," the secretary-general said, citing earlier Sens. Walter Mondale, Hubert Humphrey and the highly respected Paul Wellstone, killed in a 2002 plane crash, as examples.
Both Humphrey and Mondale went on to become U.S. vice presidents.
"The state has produced outstanding politicians and senators and quite a few of them I've got to know," added Annan. "But I cannot say I have a relationship with Coleman. I know what he says."
Some officials at the United Nations were later pleased at how the secretary-general deftly drove home a point about the "junior senator" from Minnesota.
"I think we are dealing with very complex and difficult issues both at the United Nations and on the international scene," Annan said, in a veiled suggestion that Coleman was in unfamiliar territory. "Obviously he has his views and I have tended to treat every (thing) he says or does with sympathetic understanding... These are complex issues."
This last line particularly pleased at least one U.N. headquarters official who, in recalling the remark, grinned broadly.
There followed some questions involving Annan's campaign for reforming the United Nations and his upcoming retirement. His second five-year term ends Dec. 31.
But then he was asked about one particularly tenacious columnist on the U.N.'s case, Claudia Rosett, who said "the United Nations was tainted with conflicts of interest" and whether there might be a way to make the world organization appear "at least more accountable or to increase accountability?"
Replied the secretary-general: "I think we need to be careful what we absorb when we read it, where we read it from and who writes it. I think there are many other experts on the United Nations much more experienced, much more serious, much more balanced experts. I think we should also pay attention to what they say."
He explained that some reform processes he was advocating included changes on how things are run.
"Management reform is very much a part of it," Annan said. "Let's not forget that when I took over in 1997, I started with reforms and indicated that reform was a process and not an event and the search for excellence is a constant effort."
He said "accountability and oversight" are currently being considered by member states "and I hope they will come together on the reform. There are divisions among some of the member states on some of the proposals, but I would very much hope that they would find a way forward."
The secretary-general then let loose.
That same official who appeared ever-so-pleased at Annan's earlier handling of the Coleman question suggested maybe Annan was reassured by a feeling of familiarity with his old school.
"I would also want to add that the United Nations has received some very unfair and unjustifiable criticism, organized political campaign against the organization, particularly surrounding the Oil-for-Food (Program) where instances of mismanagement were exaggerated to paint the organization as a den of thieves, which is entirely wrong," Annan told reporters.
He pointed out the commission headed up by former U.S. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker which had investigated the program.
The secretary-general said those who studied its report "will discover that if there was a problem it was a problem with the capitals (of member U.N. nations) of the 2,200 companies that made deals with (former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein) to be able to exploit the program."
He said each government was mandated to implement the Security Council's decisions, and "the governments should have controlled their companies to make sure they were not making deals with Saddam Hussein and paying kickbacks to him to get contracts."
The secretary-general referred to "some of the investigations going in Australia and others" in connection with the Iraq program.
"Quite honestly that is where the problem was," he said. "On the United Nations side it was only one U.N. staff member (program director Benon Sevan) that supposedly may have made $150,000 out of a $64 billion program, and yet when you read some of the reports... all the problem is with the United Nations.
"Suddenly we are all shocked that Saddam Hussein -- who fooled the entire Western intelligence (services) -- could cheat."
